SO MUCH FOR RUSSIAN HACK ‘HOAX’
Remember all the assurances that Russia’s meddling in our 2016 election never came close to our voting systems? Apparently we can forget those assurances.
We also can forget our government — this administration, anyway — being transparent with us about the depth of Russian hacks.
Instead, all we’ve heard from President Trump and his team is, to quote a recent Trump tweet: “The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find the leakers.” Well, thank goodness for leakers.
Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old federal contract employee for the National Security Agency who now is charged with leaking classified information from the NSA, may be something of a hero. That said, she did break the law and still should face the consequences.
Would that some of that same accountability be applied to our president for his myriad conflicts of interest, brute bullying and possible obstruction of justice.
The leaked NSA document shows that Russia military intelligence executed a cyberattack in late August on at least one U.S. voting software supplier. Then, in late October and early November, the Russians sent spear-phishing emails to 122 local election officials just days before the presidential election. The emails to the local election officials were designed to look as though they came from the software supplier, and each contained attachments designed to look like an updated system manual and checklist. Opening the attachments would download malicious software from a remote server.
Winner posted on Twitter as Sara Winners but didn’t seem too concerned with concealing her true identity. Her profile picture is a photo of herself, and she posted a selfie in February, according CNN.
Likewise, she didn’t hide her disdain for Trump, posting in February: “@realDonaldTrump the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the white house[.]”
Authorities now say she anonymously emailed the intelligence document, dated May 5, to an online national-security news outlet known as The Intercept. On Monday, The Intercept published its story about the document. Winner was arrested on the same day, after The Intercept had on May 30 sought and received authentication of the document from the government. Investigators were able to trace the anonymous email back to Winner.
When the FBI questioned Winner, a six-year veteran of the Air Force, at her Macon, Ga., home on June 3, she acknowledged to FBI agent Justin C. Garrick that she had sent the NSA document to The Intercept.
“You may not agree with her politics but she is a patriot,” her stepfather told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday.
But enough about her.
Contrary to what Donald Trump wants us to believe, the “real story” is about Russia’s meddling in our election — and its aim to help Trump.
Now we can say with near certainty that the meddling also was — at the very least — attempted voting manipulation that goes far beyond creating bot websites and fake news stories.
The document states: “Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.”
The classified report masked the name of the software vendor, referring to it as “U.S. Company 1,” in keeping with standard minimization rules for intelligence reports based on surveillance. However, the report contained references to an electronic voter identification system used by poll workers and sold by VR Systems, a Florida company.
VR Systems’ website said its products were used by jurisdictions in California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
The NSA pronouncement rings sharply at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial last week and Trump’s denial all along.
So much for Putin’s suggestion that the meddling was from “patriotic” Russians with skills of a 3-year-old.
And so much for Trump’s assertion that it might be “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.” Unless, of course, Trump knows the Russian hacker personally. He does, after all, know Carter Page, J.D. Gordon, Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner — all of who had undisclosed meetings and conversations with Russia officials during Trump’s campaign and transition before he was inaugurated.
The Intercept writes: “The NSA analysis does not draw conclusions about whether the interference had any effect on the election’s outcome and concedes that much remains unknown about the extent of the hackers’ accomplishments. However, the report raises the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results.”
Disconcertingly uncertain, indeed.